1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a terminal to which information is input by pressing keys and a control program of the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
A general mobile phone includes function keys such as on-hook, off-hook, and menu keys in addition to twelve keys used to input a phone number, such as “0” to “9”, “*”, and “#”. In recent years, functions of the mobile phone have been sophisticated, and a function handling Japanese phonic characters, such as a function to create or transmit emails, has become more popular. To input a phonic character in creating an email or the like, generally, the character is selected with the twelve keys, and a fixing operation is then performed. Usually, character lines in the Japanese syllabary are allocated to “0” to “9” keys, and each key is pressed several times to select one of the Japanese phonic characters. For example, usually, the “1” key is assigned to the “a” line. To input “u”, the “l” key is pressed three times to sequentially select characters “a”, “i”, and “u”, and then “u” is fixed by any fixing means. General fixing means is pressing another key. Such an input mode is called “5-touch mode”.
For the 5-touch mode, a technology is disclosed to perform character selection by touch and moving directions of keys previously assigned to characters (for example, see the Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2005-44339). The technology described in the Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2005-44339 is characterized in that a movement of a pressing object which touches keys, such as a finger, from a particular key to a particular direction is assigned to displaying a particular character.
A conventional terminal, for example as shown in FIG. 1, includes a key input unit 51 such as key switches, a control unit 52 which converts a key code inputted by the key input unit 51 into a character, and an output unit 54, such as a liquid crystal display, which displays the converted character.
FIG. 2 is a control flow of the conventional terminal. When a press of a key is detected (S1001), a character allocated to the pressed key is displayed (S1002). For example, when the “1” key is pressed once, a character “a” is displayed. Herein, “a” is just selected as an input candidate and not fixed yet. A timer is started at this time (S1003). The value of the timer is previously set to, for example, one second. When the timer times out (S1004), the character allocated to the pressed key is fixed as an input character (S1005). For example, in a state where “a” is selected as the input candidate, “a” is fixed as the input character when the timer times out. In the step S1004, when a key is pressed before timeout (S1006) and the pressed key is the same as the previously pressed key (S1007), the selected character is not fixed, and a key pressed state is continued (S1008). Por example, when the “1” key is pressed in a state where “a” is selected as the input candidate, “i”, which is a character in a next rank of the same line, is displayed (S1002) and becomes the input candidate. In the step S1007, when the pressed key is different from the previously pressed key, the character allocated to the previously pressed key is fixed as the input character (S1008), and the key pressed state is continued (S1009). For example, it is assumed that the “2” key is pressed in a state where “a” is selected as the input candidate. At the time when the “2” key is pressed, “a” is decided as the input character. The key pressed state is then continued, and “ka” is displayed in the step S1002 and becomes the input candidate.
Taking an input of “ie” as an example, with the above 5-touch mode, “i” and “e” are selected using only the same “1” key. However, fixing “i” requires pressing another key, and an additional finger movement is required only for such fixing. In other words, to reach a target character with the 5-touch mode, some characters at the “e” and “o” ranks and the like require continuous four or five presses, which is inconvenient.
In order to prevent this, there is another method in which, “i” is automatically fixed within a certain period of time, for example, within one second after “i” is selected. However, this method requires waiting a certain period of time, and accordingly, the input operation cannot be quickly carried out.
Moreover, in the 5-touch mode, characters are previously allocated to the respective fixed keys, and the sequence of operations to reach a certain character is therefore fixed. Accordingly, it is impossible to optimize differences in operation feeling and fatigue due to dominant arms, finger's length, and the like so as to fit to each user.
Furthermore, according to the technology described in the aforementioned Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. 2005-44339, since a plurality of characters are allocated to a same key, looking for a character takes a lot of trouble. Moreover, moving directions of each key are assigned to respective fixed characters. It is therefore difficult for the user to instantly know which direction to move the key.
The aforementioned problems are not necessarily specific to inputting characters and are relevant to an input method with a plurality of characters allocated to a same key.
In the light of the aforementioned problems, an object of the present invention is to provide a terminal including an interface suitable for each user with the input simplified and input time shortened and a control program of the terminal.